


light years away

by trustingno1



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-26
Updated: 2012-10-26
Packaged: 2017-11-17 02:02:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/546416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trustingno1/pseuds/trustingno1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She goes back to Hogwarts ("Are you <i>mad?</i>" Ron demands, and her hands are already on her hips, and maybe things will never be <i>normal</i> again, but for now, it's close enough). </p>
<p>post-DH</p>
            </blockquote>





	light years away

**Author's Note:**

> Cross-posting some older fics to AO3. Originally posted 05.09.2009
> 
> Trio friendship, unresolved Harry/Hermione undertones. Title from Wes Carr's _Light Years_.

 

She goes back to Hogwarts ("Are you _mad?_ " Ron demands, and her hands are already on her hips, and maybe things will never be _normal_ again, but for now, it's close enough). She goes back, and they don't; they see her off, and she bites her lip like maybe she's making a mistake, but after hugging them both (she throws her arms around his neck and it's familiar and warm and he holds her for a long moment, her hair in his face), she boards the train.

(His stomach twists as it pulls out, but as badly as she _needs_ to go back, he can't. Won't).

She sends them owls, like she promised ("How does she find the _time?_ " Ron wonders, eyeing the thick envelopes, warily). Ron reads parts of his out loud, over breakfast (can't believe that Hufflepuff beat Gryffindor in last week's Quidditch match - repeats it, disbelievingly, until Harry murmurs his agreement), but he reads his alone, slowly - touches the parchment and misses her more than he thought he would.

_Do you think I'm bossy?_ she asks, and it's been so _long_ since she's needed to make friends (not since she was a precocious eleven year old, and the corners of his mouth curl in a way that's become unfamiliar at the memory). She's _older_ than the others, and not just in a way they can measure in months; she fought Death Eaters and buried friends, and now she's sitting in Muggle Studies, and when it gets to be too much, she writes to him.

(He doesn't know if she talks to Ron about it. He doesn't ask).

The letters get shorter before exams ( _There's so much to learn!_ she frets - sounds like a Hermione he remembers - and when she complains that some of it's so _pointless_ , the two of them send her a reply that says little but _WE'VE BEEN SAYING THAT FOR YEARS_ ). She's critical of teachers in a way she never would have been before, in a way that makes Ron laugh.

She writes about the mundane ( _The food's not as good as I remembered_ , she notes, and when he suggests that her liberation of house-elves may have contributed, she doesn't write for a week, but he knows she's not _really_ mad). She writes about the plain boring ("I think this is a lesson plan," Ron frowns). She rarely mentions friends, or Hogsmeade, and he hears what she's not saying ( _You're still coming home for Christmas, right?_ he checks, _And don't say you have to study_ ). She's lonely, and bored, and he can't fix it.

She's having trouble sleeping - hides it in a story about noisy first years - and sometimes he forgets that the war changed her, too.

Her letters follow him when he leaves the Burrow (he doesn't go far, but there's an empty seat at the dinner table, a clock hand that won't move again, and it's kind of all his fault, so he can't stay). She understands, understands in a way Ron and Ginny can't - and she understands when letters he reads over and over go unanswered. (He can't. Not yet).

When she complains about curfew ( _Ridiculous_ , she calls it, and for someone who's been through what she has, what _they_ have, it probably is) he tacks on _It's just a few more months_ to his next letter, not sure who, exactly, he's trying to remind.

 


End file.
